Social Networking's Next Phase — Next week Cisco Systems, a Silicon Valley heavyweight, plans to announce one of its most unusual deals: it is buying the technology assets of Tribe.net, a mostly forgotten social networking site, according to people close to the companies' discussions.

Tribe Gets Aquired, For Real This Time — Last year was a turbulent one for Silicon Valley based Tribe.net. Founding CEO Mark Pincus was ousted, in April and then returned in August. While Pincus was gone rumors swirled that the company had been acquired by NBC, but the deal was never consummated.

WordPress 2.1.1 dangerous, Upgrade to 2.1.2 — Long story short: If you downloaded WordPress 2.1.1 within the past 3-4 days, your files may include a security exploit that was added by a cracker, and you should upgrade all of your files to 2.1.2 immediately.

Best Buy Confirms It Has Secret Website — Under pressure from state investigators, Best Buy is now confirming my reporting that its stores have a secret intranet site that has been used to block some consumers from getting cheaper prices advertised on BestBuy.com.

Mac install base estimated at 22 million pre-Leopard — Apple Inc.'s install base of Mac OS X users will be approximately 22 million strong come the end of March, ahead of the company's next-generation Leopard operating system release, according to analysts at Bank of America Securities.

Microsoft wins in second Alcatel-Lucent patent suit — update A week after Microsoft was ordered to hand over $1.5 billion in an Alcatel-Lucent MP3 patent dispute, a federal judge has ruled that the Windows maker did not violate a patent at the heart of a second trial that was set to begin soon.

Facebook Extends Lead As Fave Young Adult Site — Where did college students spend winter break? — If they're like the rest of 17-to-25-year-olds surveyed by Youth Trends, they likely spent part of that time on Facebook. — The social networking site topped the list of favorite sites …

Microsoft Windows Live VP to resign — Blake Irving, a Corporate Vice President in Microsoft's Windows Live Platform group, is resigning his post, according to sources close to the company. — Irving, a 15-year Microsoft veteran, is in charge of the back-end Live platform — the datacenter …

Apple: Write down your passwords — Apple advises Mac users to write down their passwords, just in case they have forgotten them when they are needed. — On its Mac 101 Web site, Apple offers a document called "My Mac Cheat Sheet" (PDF). The document has spaces for Mac users to not just record …

Sun releases Java Enterprise System 5.0 — Major update of Java ES subscription-based middleware is more modular — Sun Microsystems has released a new version of its Java Enterprise System (Java ES) set of subscription-based enterprise middleware with the emphasis on making the offering more modular.

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